FALMOUTH, Maine – William J. Shannon draws on his seven years of experience working in Japan as a lawyer to produce a fiction thriller that exposes the dark side of Japanese culture and politics. Set in the early 1990s during Japan’s financial collapse at the end of what was known as the “bubble economy,” “One Summer in Tokyo” (ISBN 1475235089) follows a group of desperate businessmen as they conspire with Yakuza gangsters and right-wing politicians to establish an anti-American government. They will stop at nothing, using blackmail, bribery and murder to achieve their goals.
CIA station chief Claire Whitlock and embassy legal attaché Derek Parker must work together to protect their home country. Working behind the scenes, the plan they pursue is both daring and at times unauthorized as they strive to maintain the incumbent weak but unfailingly pro-American government. As the battle progresses between the interested parties to gain political control, readers will gain knowledge about the complex culture and deeply ingrained practices of a country that is both ultra-modern and deeply influenced by its ancient roots.
“It is about the conflict between good and evil, especially in a culture where tradition and ritual often have a stronger influence on behavior than rational and unbiased analysis,” says Shannon.
To write the novel, Shannon drew on his own unique and engaging experiences living in Japan from 1984 to 1992. An attorney by profession, he was one of the first foreign attorneys to be licensed as a Gaikokuho-Jimu-Bengoshi, a designation that allowed him to practice law in a country that remains standoffish to outsiders, particularly in business and legal matters.
“One Summer in Tokyo” is a gripping thriller that gives an insider’s glimpse into a Japanese economy that was falling apart at the seams. Intense and provocative, its descriptions of desperate businessman and gangsters conspiring with politicians will resonate in our own current age of global financial free fall.
“One Summer in Tokyo” is available for sale online at Amazon.com, Kindle and through other channels.
About the Author:
William J. Shannon was an intelligence officer and military agent as well as a special agent with the U.S. military during which time he served for several years overseas. He is also an international business attorney who has lived and worked in many parts of the world, including living and practicing law in Tokyo. He has drawn on his own unique experiences to create this thriller.
